Enhancing Sexual Wellness Through Yoga: Insights into Its Advantages
# Yoga for a Better Sex Life: Legitimate Claims or Just Hype? Let's Investigate
The internet is filled with wellness bloggers enthusiastically recommending yoga for a better sex life and personal accounts attesting to its mind-blowing effects. But is the science backing up these claims? Let's delve into it.
In the modern era, research has started to unveil the multitude of benefits that stem from the ancient practice of yoga. Some of the reported conditions that yoga helps with include depression, stress, anxiety, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and thyroid problems. Recent studies have also shed light on the intricate mechanisms behind these benefits.
It turns out that yoga helps lower the body's inflammatory response, counters genetic expression predisposing people to stress, lowers cortisol, and boosts a protein that enhances brain growth and health. Plus, it just feels good - and sometimes, if we're to believe the hype, it feels excellent. But can these yummy poses upgrade our sex lives? Let's examine the evidence.
Yoga Enhances Sexual Function in Women
One often-referenced study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that yoga can indeed improve sexual function, particularly in women over 45. Over 40 participants reported on their sexual function before and after 12 weeks of yoga sessions.
At the end of the 12-week period, the women's sexual function had significantly improved across all sections of the Female Sexual Function Index, including desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. As many as 75 percent of the women reported an improvement in their sex life after yoga training.
During the study, all participants were trained on 22 poses, or yogasanas, which are believed to strengthen the pelvic floor, improve core abdominal muscles, boost mood, and aid digestion. Some of these poses include trikonasana (also known as the triangle pose), bhujangasana (the snake), and ardha matsyendra mudra (half spinal twist). You can find the full list of asanas here.
Yoga Enhances Sexual Function in Men
Contrary to popular belief, yoga isn't just a woman's game. A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav, a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India, examined the effects of a 12-week yoga program on the sexual satisfaction of men.
At the end of the trial period, the participants reported a significant improvement in their sexual function, as evaluated by the standard Male Sexual Quotient. Improvements were seen across all aspects of male sexual satisfaction, including desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
A comparative trial carried out by the same team of researchers also found that yoga is a viable and non-pharmacological alternative to fluoxetine (Prozac) for treating premature ejaculation. The trial included 15 yoga poses, ranging from the easier Kapalbhati (a sitting position with the chest open, eyes closed, hands on knees, and abdominal muscles contracted) to the more complex dhanurasana (the bow pose).
Yogic Mechanisms for Better Sex
So, how does yoga work its magic on our sex lives? A review of existing literature led by researchers at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, offers some insights.
Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at UBC, is the first author of the review. Dr. Brotto and colleagues explain that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and helps relax the body. These effects are associated with improvements in sexual response, making it reasonable that yoga might also boost sexual health.
There are also psychological mechanisms at play. "Female practitioners of yoga have been found to be less likely to objectify their bodies and more aware of their physical selves," explain Dr. Brotto and her colleagues. "This tendency may be associated with increased sexual responsibility and assertiveness, and perhaps sexual desires."
The Power of the Moola Bandha
Stories about releasing blocked energy in root chakras and moving "kundalini energy" up and down the spine to produce ejaculation-free male orgasms lack solid scientific evidence. However, other yogic concepts may interest the skeptics among us. Moola Bandha is one such concept.
"Moola Bandha is a perineal contraction that stimulates the sensory-motor and autonomic nervous system in the pelvic region, enforcing parasympathetic activity in the body," write Dr. Brotto and her colleagues. "Specifically, moola bandha is thought to directly innervate the gonads and perineal body/cervix."
The video below incorporates the movement into a practice for pelvic floor muscles:
Moola Bandha Video
Some studies quoted by the researchers have suggested that practicing moola bandha relieves period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, as well as treating premature ejaculation and controlling testosterone secretion in men.
Moola Bandha is similar to the modern, medically recommended pelvic floor exercises, which are thought to prevent urinary incontinence and help both men and women enjoy sex for longer. In fact, many sex therapy centers recommend this yoga practice to help women become more aware of their sensations of arousal in the genital area, thus improving desire and sexual experience.
Another yoga pose that strengthens the pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana, or the "frog pose."
Beyond improving sexual experience, this pose may help ease symptoms of vestibulodynia (pain in the vestibule of the vagina) and vaginismus (involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles).
The Reliability of the Evidence
While it's tempting to get, ahem, excited about the possible sexual benefits of yoga, it's important to note the significant difference between empirical, or experimental, evidence and anecdotal evidence.
The internet hosts a wealth of the latter, but the studies that have actually trialed the benefits of yoga for sexual function remain scarce. Additionally, most of the studies we've discussed - which found improvements in sexual satisfaction and function for both men and women - have small sample sizes and lack a control group.
However, more recent studies - which focused on women with sexual dysfunction in addition to other conditions - have yielded stronger evidence. For example, a randomized controlled trial examined the effects of yoga in women with metabolic syndrome. For these women, a 12-week yoga program led to "significant improvement" in arousal and lubrication, while such improvements were not seen in the women who did not practice yoga. Improvements were also found in blood pressure, prompting the researchers to conclude that "yoga may be an effective treatment for sexual dysfunction in women with metabolic syndrome as well as for metabolic risk factors."
Another randomized trial looked at the sexual benefits of yoga for women living with multiple sclerosis. The participants undertook 3 months of yoga training, consisting of eight weekly sessions. Importantly, women in the yoga group "showed improvement in physical ability" and sexual function, while women in the control group "manifested exacerbated symptoms."
"Yoga techniques may improve physical activities and sexual satisfaction of women with MS," the study paper concluded.
So, while we need more scientific evidence to support yoga's benefits for our sex lives, the seeds of possibility are definitely there. Until future research can determine whether "yogasms" are a real, achieving thing, we think that there's enough reason to incorporate yoga into our daily routines. Trying it out for ourselves could prove tremendously enriching - and our pelvic muscles will definitely thank us for it.
- The study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine discovered that yoga can significantly improve sexual function, particularly in women over 45, with 75% of the participants reporting an improvement in their sex lives after yoga training.
- Not only women, but men too can benefit from yoga, as a study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav found that a 12-week yoga program improves male sexual satisfaction across all aspects, including erection, ejaculatory control, orgasm, and intercourse satisfaction.
- Researchers at the University of British Columbia have suggested that yoga's effects on our sexual health are associated with its ability to regulate attention and breathing, lower anxiety and stress, and help relax the body, which in turn improve sexual response.
